Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/04/2024

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I was out of state in ********** from 12/30-01/08, getting back to my apartment on the morning of 1/09. I live by myself, so no one was using water in my apartment. This utility company claims I used ****** gallons of water in my apartment from 1/04-1/07. The problem is I wasnt even home to use anything. I called immediately because this wasnt right. They could not provide a logical reason to this. They tried saying the flapper must have been caught on the toilet, but no one was home to flush the toilet or get it unstuck. It wasnt running when I left or got home, and a toilet cant flush itself. Further, publications by the ********************* for example say that a running toilet only uses ~200 gallons per day **** This was also said to me by ******************, who found no leak. The customer service manager and her boss both said both of them were wrong. I asked how my bill when I was home all month in December was only $53, yet this one was $601. They had no answer besides their toilet story. They also claimed that their daily monitoring just happened to go out at 3am the morning I left for **********, and didnt turn back on until my apartment allegedly used that much. I asked if they had any flags in place to when an apartment that usually uses 100 gallons a day used *****. They said yes, but that was also not working when this was happening. I asked for a better explanation of this, and for them to redo my bill because this logically makes no sense and they cant even prove or show how my apartment used this much when no one was there touching the toilet, washer, shower, etc. They refused and blamed my apartment complex. I would like help getting my money back. When water should only be around $53, I wasnt home, and they cant provide a reason why it was so high, there are a lot of red flags or questions that come up. I also asked for statistics showing how much a regular running toilet uses to support their claims, & no answer.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/05/2024

  We understand that it can be frustrating when someone receives a very large bill.  Our customer support has taken several calls from this resident and has taken many steps to validate this residents bill, their water meter, and the meter read equipment to ensure that the charges on this residents bill were accurate.  Additionally, all information about this situation has been communicated several times to this resident, but the only answer they seem to want to hear is that they wont have to pay their bill, so they have resorted to making public complaints.  
  

  The reason for the large bill was extremely high consumption (average of ***** gallons/day) over a 10 day period from 12/28/23 to 1/7/24, the exact dates the resident says they were not in the unit.  While we do not have the ability to know the exact cause of this issue, as was communicated to the resident, the most typical cause of this quantity of consumption, without physical water damage, is a toilet flapper that is stuck open. It likely ran for 10 days straight because they were not home.  If they were home they might have identified the issue or possibly flushed the toilet which would have closed the flapper.  This is of course an unfortunate situation.  The resident has selectively chosen their own research of a maximum of 200 gallons per day for this type of issue.  As has been communicated to the resident, this is just not the case.  There are many different parts in a toilet that can fail and result in different quantities of water to be consumed, ranging from a few gallons to a few thousand gallons.  This is a fact and any plumber or online search can back this up.
  

  In the case of this resident, they have a water meter installed in their unit that measures the water consumption for this unit.  The meter has a physical register that measures and displays the amount of water that has been consumed.  There is also wireless equipment attached to the meter that broadcasts the read to our company and is our primary method of reading the meter and calculating the consumption used on the residents bill.  In the process of researching this residents complaints we have verified the read on the meter register is the same as what it is communicating to our meter read system.  Additionally, the meter register (physical count of water consumption) has been tested for accuracy.  The combination of these tests means that the consumption that the resident has been billed for is accurate and definitely consumption from this unit, whether they were aware of it or are just not happy with the quantity.
  

  As we have communicated to the resident, we are a 3rd party billing company that is hired by her property to take the meter readings and apply correct and accurate charges to each resident for their consumption.  For this property, we collect the resident payments and remit those funds to the property so they can pay for the consumption billed to the property by their water utility.  The water that has been consumed by this unit has been paid for by the property.  As much as we would like to make this resident happy by reducing her bill to a much smaller amount, we have no ability to do so.  Only the property can authorize and make this type of adjustment and, in this case, that would mean that the property would pay for her consumption and corresponding high bill instead of her.  We have encouraged her to discuss these options with the property.